The Vampire Diaries: Damon's Encounter
by Lucretia Debrev
Summary: Damon Salvatore has a secret he's never told anyone, not his brother Stefan, or his father Giuseppe, secrets he hid right under their very noses from 1864. A secret that Damon kept from Stefan for two and a half centuries, and secrets Damon never told his father with his dying breath. This secret completed the love triangle, and its hope for catastrophe.


"Dave!"

Dave had taken a bullet for him.

"Damon, go! Keep movin' you have to keep movin'. Can't have nobody thinkin' you desertin'. "

"Thank you. I promise, your family will not starve, I give you my word."

"Thank you, sir . Tell Marie I love her. Tell her I…"

Damon ran across the field in rage, firing at anything that moved.

Dave had been Damon's friend for years. He'd gone hunting with him, fishing along the marshes, he was like family to him. Dave may have been just a slave in his father's eyes, but to Damon he was a friend, a brother.

_"I'll kill the man who shot him, the damned Yankees!" _Damon thought. _"This war is taking things to far! Next thing you know they'll burn the south right down to the ground or vise versa."_

Damon shot recklessly at the air and the flesh and blood he saw in dark blue. Never once thinking they'd fire back.

Damon thought it would take one bullet to end him, but his rage pushed him on and it took two more to the chest to bring him down.

As he lay on the ground, that grey that blocked the blue slowly fell like dominoes or a great wall, so that all he saw was a wave of Yankees in blue headed right toward him. And then he gave up indulging in the pain and hoped that he'd be shot again, but he was never shot again, he just listened as other soldiers hit the ground dead or screamed in agony. And then everything faded, and he became numb and he welcomed darkness, glad to be rid of the hell known as the battle field that he'd been in for three months.

Damon remembered as he began to come back to consciousness, the sounds of cannon fire, and guns going off, he also heard the sound of men dying and crying out in pain. He never realized how much that had affected him. He never thought it would stick in his mind. He never thought it would instill such fear into him. Damon also remembered ringing after hearing the cannon go off. As he woke up, his hand began to shake under the covers of his hospital bed. He whispered, "I probably haven't eaten in a while." "But if it's just because you haven't eaten in a while then why is this violent, this uncontrollable." He thought to himself. Damon had not opened his eyes and he only suspected he was in a hospital.

_"Hello?"_

_"Hello."_

_"Hello? Sir?"_

Damon opened his eyes to a nurse.

"What- What happened?"

"You were shot three times, sir."

"I was? What day is it?"

"It's June 7th. You've been here for 3 weeks, sir."

"Three weeks?"

"Yes sir. The Doctor can tell you more than I can, rest now."

"Where am I?"

"You're in Washington, Campbell General Hospital."

_"Washington?"_

"Yes, sir."

"Washington! I'm in Washington? How did I get here?"

"Sir you where found on the battle field in Virginia, that's all I know. Rest now."

"Why? So as soon I get better you can work me to death in some prison camp, hell no!"

Damon tried to lean forward to get up but it hurt too much, and he felt his hand begin to shake even more.

"Calm down, sir. No one's going to send you to any prison camp…"

"Isn't that what Yankees do with Confederate soldiers? Send them to work camps to be prisoners of war?"

"I don't know I'm just a nurse…."

_"Why didn't someone just shoot me on the battle field? That would've made my Father happy. To know that his son died in war and all that nonsense, a 'brave hero'." _

"And why can't I stop shaking? I can't stop shaking….."

" You're shaking? I'll be right back and get the Doctor, Mister?…"

"Salvatore. Damon Salvatore."

Damon groaned. _"My head, why won't this ringing stop? Why won't this shaking stop? Why did I have to live? I don't have any reason to. No reason what so ever. I'm broken. How useful could I be on the plantation, broken and _shaking_?"_

"Hello."

"Hi, are you the Doctor? Do you know how long I'll be here before I'm sent to a prison work camp?"

_"Why the hell did I say that to the _Doctor_?"_

"No I'm not. And you won't be sent to a prison work camp."

_"Oh thank God he's not the Doctor, when I see him I really need talk to him about this ringing and shaking."_

"But I'm a Confederate soldier. Born and raised in Virginia. Aren't I prisoner of war or something?"

"No. Might I ask you your name sir?"

"Yes, my name is Damon Salvatore, pleased to meet you."

"Would you shake my hand if I told who I am?"

"Yes."

_"Why? Who are you?"_

"And before I do, might I ask you why you joined the war?"

_"Who is this loon, asking me about why I joined the war while I'm in a hospital?"_

"I joined the war because….. I don't really know, I guess it was a sense of duty….that and my father made me. I wanted to prove to him that I wasn't as spineless as he thought I was."

"And why does he think you so 'spineless'?"

_"Why do you want to know why my Dad thinks I'm a spineless bastard?"_

Damon weighed the odds for why this man would want to know such a thing but he saw no harm in telling him so he went on to answer his question.

"Well see not everyone in the south likes owning slaves. And the only reason we keep them on our plantation is because we know they don't have anywhere else to go and besides my brother and I work alongside them, even if my father won't. They're like family to us. But my father thinks I'm spineless because I fish and hunt with them. He thought I needed to stop being a kid and to stop laughing everywhere I went and to start being a man so he's sent me to war. My father's a very cruel man. And not just to his slaves. When my mother had me she grew very weak. I once heard my father say that if she had not had me then she would've survived my brother's birth so he blames me for her death. Dave, a slave I've known sense I was just a kid…he's dead. Dave took a bullet for me. I don't care what my father says I _will_ set his family for life; I will make sure they know he died with honor! I will make sure they know he died for me and a noble cause."

"With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die. Don't you agree?"

"Yes I do."

_"I wonder what my father would say if I told him that. He'd never let me live it down but I'd love to see the look on his face."_

"And how do you feel about your cause, this war?"

_"Why for the sake of my sanity and dignity do you want to know?"_

_"Oh shut up Damon. He's probably just being nice and trying to make conversation with patients like you. Besides you've already told him that your father thinks your nothing why not tell him why you're fighting in this hell of war?"_

"I feel like it started out as a few men butting heads, the South doesn't really care one way or the other whether the slaves are free, nor does the north care whether they're not free, it's just pride. Neither side wants to back down, a beautiful city, Atlanta, burned to the ground by the north. Everyone's ruthless all because of pride and anger, and when this war is over the south will be ruined and the north will be less than willing to help. Perhaps President Lincoln will. He seems to be a good man. I think that if he came down saw what happened to Atlanta, if he could've seen it in all its beauty, the moss covered oaks, the honey sweet air on a cool summer day…But he never will because it is all ashes. I went to Atlanta with my father as a young man. It was the most beautiful city in the entire south other than my hometown. "

The man looked into Damon's eyes and saw how they light up when he talked about the south. Damon looked into the man's eyes and saw that they mirrored his.

"Have you ever been down south?" Damon asked.

"Yes. Georgia."

_"So why do you talk as if you've never set foot in the South? Georgia is the heart of it. You mock me sir."_

"It was nice meeting you." Damon said.

"Oh but you haven't." the man said with a mischievous look in his eye.

_"Who are you?"_

"Forgive me sir. I'm out of sorts today, and my mood is not a jolly as I would like it. Believe it or not I miss my hometown and my brother intimately. I actually miss my father which I thought wasn't even possible up to this point."

_"I do miss home, don't I? How is it that I just realized that now, in retelling my life's story to this stranger?"_

The man extended his hand.

"What did you say your name was?"

"Damon. Damon Salvatore."

"And you are?"

"Abraham. Abraham Lincoln."

"_Abraham Lincoln_?"

"Yes sir."

_"You're kidding?"_

"The-the President?"

"Yes-"

Damon shook his hand hardily.

"It's an honor! My brother will never believe me when I tell him I met the President of the United States! It's really an honor Mr. Lincoln."

"Yes, same to you Mr. Salvatore, and please call me Abe."

"Sure. Call me Damon, only my father calls me 'Mr. Salvatore'."

"Oh, Mr. Salvatore! I'm Doctor Carson- Oh Mr. Lincoln, I didn't know you were here-I'm sorry. I'll leave you two alone…"

"Nonsense. Do your job. Damon, it was a pleasure, and it was nice meeting you."

Abe Lincoln shook his hand once more and took his leave.

"Doctor Carson. Am I going to live?" Damon said with a chuckle.

"I'm serious. It hurts to move anything at all and earlier my head and ears where ringing like hell. And my hand keeps shaking."

"Well Mr. Salvatore, you have something that many of the men here have, they're calling it soldier's heart. Also I need you to tell me if you can move and feel your legs or if can't move or feel anything else."

"I can move them a little but they keep shaking."

"Have you been seeing or hearing things?"

Damon thought about what he saw as he'd drifted into consciousness.

"Yes. I mean as I came back into consciousness I saw visions of the war. But that may be nothing."

"I'm going to try something and I'd like you to tell me how it makes feel and react ok?"

"Um…ok."

The Doctor held out a Confederate hat.

"My hand is shaking more violently." Damon stuttered.

_"Why do I feel so scared suddenly? It's just a hat…"_

"Alright. How do you feel."

"I feel strangely nervous and tense. Like I need to be ready for some kind of attack…"

"Mr. Salvatore when you are well enough try walking for me."

"Oh well I can try now-" Damon cried out in pain.

"Mr. Salvatore please don't! You've been shot three times! You have five broken ribs, please don't strain yourself!'

"Ok…..sorry."

"Rest now. I'll get the nurse to find you something to do if you feel uncomfortable."

"Mr. Salvatore you do indeed have soldier's heart, also known as mortar shock."

"What is soldier's heart exactly?"

"Soldier's heart is when a soldier that comes back from war experiences tremors or violent shaking from the war, also the ringing you told me about earlier is tinnitus, but unless you've experienced more of that it was only temporary."

"Why was I shaking?"

"That was a reaction to the war, to sounds, explosions; war does things to the mind."

"Mortar shock…..will it last for the rest of my life, or is it only temporary?"

"I can't say for sure whether it will stay with you for life yet. In some cases though it has in other cases they've been able to rehabilitate themselves."

"Ok, how soon will I be able to go home?"

"Your ribs are almost healed, but I'd recommend you stay here for at least three more weeks."

"Please call me Damon."

In the three weeks Damon was at the hospital the mortar shock didn't go away but it did lessen. When Damon tried to walk a week later he lost the feeling in his legs in sudden paralysis, and he fell, because of Damon's fall he was at the hospital for another month. When he returned home only when he told his brother about the war did he feel his hand begin to shake. Damon told Doctor Carson he didn't want his brother or his father to know what had happened to him.

"Why not Damon?"

"Because Archie, my father has lost my mother and whether he shows it or not I think he's still hurting. And as for my brother…..I don't want him to worry."

"So you're just going to tell them you deserted?"

"Yes."

"And you're just going to waltz in there in your uniform? But what about the mortar shock?"

"I'm not going to wear it as I travel, I'll put it on before I get there."

"Well you're going to a lot of trouble to hide it if you ask me."

"I know. Archie, I know this a lot to ask but my father will never believe that I've been through hell from my lips, sometime, if needed at all would you tell him what happened to me?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, Archie, for everything. I know I've been here two months, and I know I've been one hell of a burden, but really thank you, you've been a like a brother to me."

"Same to you."

"And Archie, feel free to stop by anytime!"

"I will. Good bye, Damon."

"Bye Archie. I'll return the horse to you as soon as I can."

"There's no hurry!"

Damon changed his clothes as a coach rode by.

_"There's the plantation in all its glory. I'll be damned if I don't die here, or in this town." _

"Home sweet home."

Damon looked himself over. Everything was in order. The color made his hand shake. Damon inhaled sharply. He closed his eyes and pictured the battle field and all its horrors and then he clinched his hand into a fist, and walked down the dirt road home.

Damon woke up at four, he couldn't sleep. Besides he had to see her again. Fortunately she was awake too.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Damon right?"

"Yes."

"You're brother told me he really missed you. How long where you at war?"

"Five months."

"But you've been away seven months?"

"Did I say five? I meant seven."

"Right…"

"So why couldn't you sleep?"

"Oh, well I've never slept in this house before, not used to it and all its beauty."

"Right…"

"And what about you?"

"Well I haven't slept in this house in five months. And we constantly moved around so when I slept…. It wasn't for long. I feel kind of restless you know. Oh, you've got something on your lips…"

"Oh sorry."

"It's fine. If you want more I can give it to you."

Katherine looked surprised.

"We've got better wine in cellar."

"Oh, right wine."

"Hey how did you get into the wine anyway? I mean at this late hour if you don't mind me asking?"

Katherine looked him in the eyes and whispered, "You don't remember seeing anything on my lips, we talked downstairs for a while because we couldn't sleep then we went up to bed. Got it?"

"If you don't want to me tell how you got into it fine. I won't tell anyone you had a swig."

Damon kissed Katherine. This also surprised her.

"I wanted to see what kind of wine you drank."

Katherine slapped him.

"Actually it didn't taste like wine at all."

The clock struck five.

"I think I'll go back up to bed. If you want to have another drink please feel free." Damon said rubbing cheek as he walked down the hall to his bed room.

Damon listened and waited for Katherine's door to shut behind her, then he headed for the library.

"Mythological Creatures, do we have nothing on that sort of thing!" Damon whispered angrily.

Damon slid the latter down a shelf. _"I've looked over a whole _wall_ of shelves already! What's it going to take to find a book about monsters that don't exist?"_

"Damon?"

"God damn it!"

Damon fell from the latter; he pivoted, and pirouetted in midair. Conditioned by instinct when a sniper is in the area, he'd drop face forward, hands flat, toes curled two inches from the ground.

"How did you do that?"

"Who-"

Damon held his fists up ready to fight whoever was lurking in the shadows.

"Oh. Ha, Father you startled me!"

"How did you do that?"

"What?"

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"What you just did. When I startled you, as you fell you turned around in midair and braced yourself for the ground, where did you learn to do _that_?"

"It's instinct. I had to be prepared for anything during the war…."

"_During_ the war? It's still going _on_! Why did you leave? Did you _dessert_? Why did you abandon your country in its hour of need!"

"I couldn't take it anymore!" Damon fired back.

"I couldn't take the noise, the screaming, it was all too much, why can't understand that!"

"Why?"

"I don't know!"

"You're a coward!"

"Oh really you try going to war for seven months, watching kinsmen die and cities burn! Can you imagine our plantation, our town, _burned_ to the ground! Ashes! No survivors, women and children trapped in their houses left to die! Can you? _I can!"_

"I'm going to take a walk."

"Wait just a minute what were you doing in here?"

"Why do you care?"

"That doesn't matter, answer my question!"

"I don't have to take this." Damon said walking out the front door into the cool night air.

"Answer my question. Now."

"I don't have to."

Damon's father looked at him, silence choking the air making the sweet honey smell that drifted along the wind sickening and unbearable to Damon suddenly. He'd always loved that smell that came along with the breeze making the moss on the old oak trees sway. It always made him feel calm and seduced as if he was dead, yet alive, _existing_ in a universe filled with enticing sunlight and lovely melodies of better days from his past when he was not blamed for being worriless or wanting to be. When he had no worries at all and he was just happy. There was once a time when Damon would have given the wind and its smell and feeling the personification of a siren, but as Damon's Father stood on the front porch of their house, waiting for Damon to turn around and face him, the bewitching smell, only made Damon feel more open to attack if he gave into the invisible siren. So he held his breath trying to resist the siren and the urge to scream.

Damon felt his hand begin to shake, and his heart begin to race. Damon couldn't just imagine his home burning to the ground and all who lived in it, he could see it. Damon felt the heat from the fire, and breathed in the thick smell of smoke. Damon closed his eyes, when he opened them his Father had light his pipe, but that didn't stop the flood of memories from coming back to him. Damon put his shaking hand in his pocket. The fire blazed higher and higher consuming everything in the house. Damon remembered trying to save someone inside but it was pointless, there was no way to get in or out but he tried anyway. Damon tried to get in through the cellar. Damon almost died that night. He almost died trying to get in to get the person out, and he almost died in the house trying to get out and away from the fire and smoke…..

Damon opened his eyes and realized not only was his hand beginning to shake violently to a noticeable extreme, but also that he was sweating and breathing too quickly.

"Damon! Tell me why you were in there!"

Damon started to walk away.

"Why can't you be more like your brother? Why can't you just be more like Stefan? He's studying to be a doctor, if _he_ had gone to war _he_ wouldn't have deserted, he would've stayed and fought like a man, a true _gentleman_."

Damon could've laughed at the contradiction his father had made. Damon of all people knew there was nothing gentleman about war. There would never be be any rules. And the irony of it all was that his father had not been to war and Damon had, and his father was lecturing him about it.

Damon's mortar shock had gone from shivering to a violent shaking he realized it was his father's pipe smoke that was provoking the instinct to bolt, but because Damon realized this it made him angry. It made him angry to know that his father could control him, and his emotions when he wasn't even trying.

"What did you just say to me?"

"I said why can't you be more like your brother."

"Well Giuseppe, I am so sorry I'm not like your only child Stefan, his mother must be very proud of him. As the only child did he have to go to war? Or was he able to stay at home and continue his medical studies while the rest of the United States burned in hell? Would you like a light sir, for that fine pipe? Oh, one moment I'd like to show you something if you'd kindly wait here, Mr. Salvatore."

Damon went into the barn and grabbed the slave whip and came back out to see Giuseppe still on the front porch.

"You want me to be more like Stefan? Then you're going to have to train me." Damon grabbed his Father's arm and took him to the barn where he knew they would not be heard, then began to unbutton his night shirt.

"What are you….."

Damon handed the whip to Giuseppe, and bent over in the stance he'd seen slaves take when they were about to receive a lashing.

"Do it. It's just like when you saw my teacher beat me as a child. Which by the way, never happened to Stefan. Go ahead do it, I promise I won't scream. No one can hear us out here anyway."

Damon had his back turned to his Father but he saw his father's shadow lift the whip, and just as he was about to lower onto Damon's back he stopped.

Damon's other hand was shaking. Giuseppe looked at him for a minute puzzled. Damon's stare was hard and cold, he bent back over again. This time the whip did come down on his back.

"Again." Damon said.

"Again." _Whoosh, snap._

"Again." Damon said, he heard his voice waver and he inhaled deeply. "Again." _Whoosh, snap._

"Again." _Whoosh, snap._

"Again." Damon was surprised at the hurt and anger in his own voice, but he didn't care, he wanted his father to break, but Damon got his stubbornness from his father and it seemed like neither of them were going to give in.

"Again." Damon said feeling the sting of the whip on his back for the eighth time.

Giuseppe stopped.

"Why do you insist upon this!" Giuseppe yelled. But Damon detected fear in his father's voice. _"He probably thinks I've gone mad. Perhaps I have... Why else would I be enjoying this...pain?"_ But it wasn't just fear in his voice, it was hurt as well, but Damon wasn't about to back down.

"Just do it. In fact, how long will that girl…Katherine being staying here? Let's keep this little routine of ours up until she leaves shall we? If we want to continue doing this after she leaves than we can." Damon looked his father square in the eye and held out his hand.

"Why do you want this continue?"

"It's training, to mold me into a _gentleman_. A respectable, hard working, Only training." Damon said with the hint of a smile.

"I won't tolerate such foolishness-"

"If you won't do it, the slave foreman will."

"It's just an agreement among friends. By the way, from what I've heard about your son, Stefan, he's very responsible, which means we have _a lot_ of training ahead of us. Good evening, sir." Damon said.

Damon went to the local healer the next day and treated his lashes.

"How did you get these scars Mister-"

"Greene. No reason. If you keep this quiet and let me come here to keep these little,_ scratches_, a secret there will be more." Damon said gesturing the wad of money he had in his hand.

The healer nodded and agreed to keep mum about it.

Damon went to Katherine's chambers the following night.

"Why Mr. Salvatore. what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

"Me, why I...i know what you are."

"What?"

"I know that you're a...a vampire."

"How could you possibly prove-"

"I won't tell anyone if you do something for me."

"What would you have me do?"

"Vampires can...can control minds, am I wrong?"

"No..."

"Good. I want you to make me forget pain from this war we've been fighting..."

"And what if I want something more?" Katherine said gently removing a strand of black hair out of Damon's blue grey eyes.

"What do you...oh. I suppose you can have some of my bl-"

"I don't want _that_... That comes later. No, Mr. Salvatore, what I want, is _you_." Katherine said with a smile.

"Fine. Just make the pain go away. When do you want me to visit your chambers? I'm otherwise occupied until midnight..." Damon stopped. Not only did he sound suspicious but also sounded like a fool. He couldn't tell her what he was really doing anyway. Only when he thought about it, did Damon realize that how odd it sounded, and how few excuses he could give as to what he was doing with his free time out in the barn. _What excuse can I give to Stefan, or Katherine? What legitimate excuse can you possibly give?_

Still in his Confederates uniform, Damon kissed Katherine, on her neck and she kissed his. _I shouldn't be doing this in my uniform, it's not right._

Katherine's gentle kiss upon his neck grew harder, until Damon felt a slight sting. The sting grew, the hairs on the back of Damon's neck stood on end as he realized what was happening. Suddenly a sharp pain overwhelmed Damon. As he gasped for breath, his hand began to shake_. No, you're not back on the battlefield, it's over. You have nothing to worry about. The pain is just Katherine drinking your blood...Now that I think about it feels sort of good. Yes, it feels good to have a pain I like for a change. A pain I like, and recognize, a pain I enjoy...Yes, it feels good to give someone something as vital, and precious as blood..._

Then Damon stopped kissing Katherine. _You've just let her inside your head...Do you know what that means? Do you know what information she's now open to?_

_Damon, it's Katherine._

_Katherine? You're inside my mind?_

_Yes._

_There's no need to be afraid. You don't need anyone to take pain away, what you need is someone to love you, and be loved in return._

_Alright._


End file.
